This Bloody Curse
by KatWrech
Summary: Harry knows, oh yes, he knows the painful truth about the Patronus charm and what form it can take if certain feelings are strong enough. One-shot, HPDM.


Harry woke with a start, sweat prickling down his forehead and his covers sticking to his body. Panting slightly, he groaned and sat up, rubbind tiredly at his eyes. The moonlight shining through the windows indicated that it was far too early to be up, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care.

Ten minutes later found him sitting in the Gryffindor common room, curled up in a chair, craddling a cup of chocolate to his chest. He'd lit the fireplace, and now he was staring deep into the flames, trying to figure out what kind of images they were showing, what kind of world he could disappear in _this_ night- but tonight they were dissapointing.

The war had changed everyone- someone for the worse, someone for the better. Harry'd yet to figure out wich categeory he was in. But he'd _changed_ , he knew as much.

His nightmares proved that.

In many weeks now, he'd been haunted by them. Every night he woke up at the exact same time- three o'clock. Always. The moon would be shining into the dorm, flickering over his sheets and covers, waking him up from the horrid visions created in his sleep.

 _Always silver- always gray._

The hous-elves, now used to him asking for hot chocolate at odd hours at night, would prepare a cup of the liquid and place it on his bedtable.

He would walk down to the common room, light the fireplace and stare into it, trying to shut out the pictures from his dream as the flames licked burning logs, breaking them down, tearing them apart and destroying them.

Every night, Harry would do the same. Wait until the fire showed him something- it didn't matter what. Sometimes, it would be wonderful tales about life, love and laughter- friendship. Kindness. Other times, what he saw was stories about death, the darkness, mares and hollowness. He didn't care what they told; they were stories, they were tales where _he_ wasn't the one supposed to save anyone, tales only he knew about.

Tales, in feelings and touch. Not words, not screaming nor yelling- Harry craved them, the tales, the stories. He was scared he'd go mad without them.

But tonight, none were being told. Harry sighed, but didn't tear his gaze away from the fire, and his frown didn't cease.

He knew he should tell his friends- Ron, Hermione- Ginny, who'd been so understanding. But he couldn't, they'd drug him down, and if he'd refuse to take the potions, they'd pour it down his _throat._

He took a deep sip from the cup, before he slowly reached over to the table on his right, picking up his wand. Finally, he looked away from the dancing heat roaring in the fireplace. Instead, he fixed his glance at the piece of wood in his hands.

He closed his eyes and sighed again, leaning backwards and tightening his grip on the cup in his hands, as if it could save him from his doom.

The nightmares were horrible- they didn't form any kind of storyline, certainly not, but they _did,_ however, create terrible pictures. They were short, nothing spectaculare, but yet…

Harry shuddered.

 _Dementors, Sirius and the Veil-_

Bolting upright in his chair when he relived the worst times of his life, Harry gasped slightly and shook his head.

 _-a flash of green light- 'Not Harry! Please, not Harry, take me-'_

Harry begun staring into the fire again, trying to drown his sorrows in the Gryffindor colours at display- it didn't work, and he hastily got up. He quickly found his way over to one of the windows, and, still clutching his cup of chocolate, sat down.

The moon was almost full, and few clouds spotted the sky.

Just like the last few weeks, immediatly when Harry sat down, he found comfort in the moon and the silver light it was pushing gently in his direction, it's long, grey hands craddling his hair with the echo of a laugh he'd never heard, but so deeply wished to.

 _Voldemort's hissing,_ Haaarryyy Pooottteeer _\- more darkness, Evil, Bellatrix LeStrange, the bodies of Remus and Tonks-_

Harry gave up, just like the other times, in the other days with different stories and tales.

 _Eternal darkness. And then-_ 'Expecto Patronum!' _-a thin, silver-blue dragon emerged, roaring, flapping it's wings wildly, clawing at the darkness and chasing it away, leaving nothing but light in its wake. A figure, taller then Harry, but his face in shadows. 'Potter.' It said, softly, reaching out a hand, Harry taking it. 'This is no place to stay. Come with me.'_

And then he would wake up, to the moon shining brightly in the sky, like some sort of phantom replacement for what could have been if things were different.

Just like every other nights, Harry picked up his wand, and whispered the magical words. I await a guardian- «Expecto Patronum.»

Out of the tip of his wand, a dragon broke free. It was just like the one in his dream, just that this time, it wasn't roaring, just as if it seemed to understand that it should not make any sound, should not wake the castle, should remain a silent secret only Harry knew about.

And just like every other nights, tears prickled in Harry's eyes as the dragon chased the darkness away and lightened his heart.

It was a bloody curse, it was, he decided yet again, as he watched the dragon fly through the room, up in the cealing, over the fireplace and sniffing at the dorms, deciding that it was no place to stay- and then, as in every night, it flew straight towards the window he'd been sitting at earlier, then through it-

And then it was gone.

Harry, just like any other night, sighed, before he went to bed again.

A bloody curse.


End file.
